SelfInflicted
by Sullen Kitty
Summary: Oneshot. “All your wounds are self-inflicted.” Bobby has lost Alex’s trust, and it’s killing him. Set directly after Purgatory.


Title: Self-Inflicted

Title: Self-Inflicted

Summary: Oneshot. "All your wounds are self-inflicted." Bobby has lost Alex's trust, and it's killing him. Set directly after Purgatory.

Disclaimer: No, I don't own LOCI.

--

As soon as he got into his apartment, Bobby locked the door.

A preemptive measure of protection against the monsters that could get to him. Not that it would work tonight.

He stumbled into the kitchen, tripping over himself not out of an alcohol-induced drunkenness, but out of a haze of self-awareness.

He poured himself a glass of scotch – as if justice was his _actual_ drug of choice– and sat down in his comfortably worn armchair.

Self-awareness. The word had really held no basic meaning for him until tonight.

Alexandra Eames, the one person whose values, opinions and thoughts he prized more highly than all others – he'd lost her trust tonight.

That hurt even more than it had when he'd lost his mother's. He could, in a way, cope with that. After all, it was due to the madness that held her brain in a tight grip of unrelenting neurosis and paranoia.

But with Eames – that had been his choice, to lose her trust. And he supposed that had put an end to the ongoing chicken-or-egg question:

Which meant more to him,

Alex

or

The Job?

Apparently The Job.

He moodily took a gulp of scotch.

Did The Job really mean that much to him? Was it so important that he would give up the one person who truly cared about him to keep it?

He hadn't really lost Eames all together, per se, he reflected; but without her trust, there was no way they could continue to be as in sync as they had been previously.

And as being in sync with Eames was essentially his life – well, what was the point anymore, really?

He realized, lamely, that he was doing exactly what Eames had claimed he'd been doing all along. What was it she'd said?

"Oh, Bobby. All your wounds are self-inflicted."

Her voice… so edgy and raw it hurt to think about it.

Going along with his whole taking-the-blame stance, he might as well gobble that up while he was at it, just take the fucking blame for Eames' overemotional state too. And he'd better fucking take it, because it was all his goddamn fault.

It was all his goddamn fault that he'd decided to take the undercover op, all his fault that he couldn't have come up with a better excuse for his actions when Eames had been with him other than, "Oh, I'm trying to protect you. Oh, there were rules. Oh, remind me that when we get back I have to jeopardize our jobs and go undercover illegally in another mental institution. But don't worry, I'M TRYING TO PROTECT YOU."

What a fucking hypocrite he was! And he didn't even have the decency to say it out loud. _Excellent._

--But wasn't it worth it? He'd gotten The Job back, after all. And while being in sync with Alex was his life, The Job was what he lived for. So if he couldn't have Eames, at least he'd have The Job. That might ease the pain a bit.

But – wait.

The Job couldn't talk. The Job wasn't warm. The Job didn't know him better than he knew himself, inside and out. The Job didn't know what hurt him, how much, or how to make him feel better.

The Job was not Alex Eames.

Bobby blinked and kneaded the bridge of his nose with his forefingers, then stopped himself. Old habits die hard. Alex did that whenever she had a headache. He couldn't remember doing it before he met her – he'd probably picked up the habit.

Along with old habits went trust, he thought sourly, downing the rest of his scotch.

Old habits and trust and his mother and brother and father – and Eames…

And see how he depersonalized her, even when he was trying to garner back her frail trust. Calling her "Eames", refusing to allow himself to use her first name because that would mean they were becoming closer, and to hell with personal relationships because they usually ended up in hell with trust anyway!

She'd begun to foster those kinds of thoughts, too. She hadn't even called him Bobby when she left. A parting shot: "Detective."

Fuck! If anything, he needed Alex more than she needed him. So what the hell was the matter with him, shoving her away when the rest of the world was either closed to him or gone?

The Job really was the only thing left, he realized with a growing sense of misery. He'd thought it before, when he was in need of a scapegoat or something, but now that it was a reality it felt more terrible than he could ever have imagined.

So why had he, Robert O. Goren, been so ill-fated? He was smart, he was insightful, he was strong…

Perhaps that was it, he realized. He used strong only in the physical sense. Maybe in a mental sense he wasn't.

In mental prowess, he was far above most normal people. In mental preparedness –

He could live without his mother's trust because he'd always known he was going to lose it some day.

He could not live without Alex Eames' trust because he wasn't ready to give it up.

x

The door quietly clicked open. "Bobby?" Alex called quietly. "I know it's late… You awake?"

The light was still on, but there wasn't an answer.

Alex moved stealthily into the tiny living room, where she found a sleeping Bobby propped up on an old armchair, a once-filled glass of scotch on the arm.

She smiled thinly. Scotch. He _would_ drink after today…

She took the glass and washed it out in the kitchen, though she left it in the sink. Drying her hands, she flung the towel over the back of a chair and walked back into the living room, where she found an old blanket to throw over her partner's form.

Her partner…

Alex Eames smiled and brushed her hand over his cheek. "See you tomorrow," she whispered.

-Fin-

A/N: Not sure about the ending, but I love it overall. Inspired by the amazing Bobby/Alex confrontation scene in "Purgatory".

R&R!


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